Metro & Beyond: The Bickering Gets Louder between Cuomo and de Blasio

T he governor of New York and the mayor of New York City don’t like each other.

And now, their feud has reached new heights, with each accusing the other of trying to score political points over a proposed plan to unite state Democrats.

Their latest spat stems from an attempt by Governor Andrew Cuomo to unite Democrats in the New York state senate. Since 2011, a group of Democrats called the Independent Democratic Caucus (IDC), led by Bronx state senator Jeff Klein, has caucused with the Republicans in Albany. In effect, that’s meant the Republicans control the legislative body, even though they’ve been elected to a minority of the seats.

Cuomo now wants to unite the centrist IDC with the larger state Democratic party, but New York mayor Bill de Blasio says Cuomo is only pushing for a deal because he wants to run for president in 2020.

“It’s very convenient for him now, as he apparently is running for president, to be in good graces with the Democratic Party,” said de Blasio recently. “So now he’s going to move heaven and earth to have a Democratic senate... Well, he’s been in office since 2011. He could have done that from the very beginning.”

The state Democratic Committee, backed by Governor Cuomo, introduced a proposal earlier in the week for a unity agreement. The deal would give the senate Democrats a caucus of 32 seats out of the total 63. According to the letter, sent to Klein and senate Democratic leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, both the IDC and senate Democrats would have the right to “attend leaders’ meetings, approve bills that come to the floor, and both would have the right to approve each other’s deputies.” Both factions would also refrain from participating in primary challenges against incumbent senators and would work together to win seats in future elections.

The party also issued an ultimatum that if the IDC declines the offer, “the State Democratic Party infrastructure would be prepared to unite in presenting primary challenges to IDC members,” and if the Democrats can’t come to a compromise, “the same infrastructure would be prepared to unite in calling for a new leadership team committed to unifying all Democrats.”

That’s when de Blasio fired the shot, saying he was very skeptical of the deal. “The governor and the IDC have enabled each other from the beginning.” (Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 688)